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Topic: Cockpit lighting (Read 1486 times)

I Just love lights. Lots of em. One of the first things I did to my 2010 was put LED lighting in the Left Hand switch block. A few have asked me about it so I thought I'd write it down just in case it helps anyone.

If you're not handy with a soldering iron then don't do this. Otherwise, the task is very simple and should't take more than an hour.

The switch block comes apart in two pieces by undoing its Phillips head screw.

Once inside, there is plenty of room for some small wires. You may have to temporarily remove the switches. Before you do, I suggest you take pics with your phone to refer to afterwards in case you forget what goes where.

Carefully decide where you want your LED to go. You will need to drill a hole in the plastic for the LED to poke through. I used 3mm LEDs. I therefore drilled a 4mm hole. From the outside of the switch I pushed a 3mm LED clip into the hold. From the inside I pushed my 3mm LED through the clip in the hole until lit clicked into place. Once in place the LED wont drop out.

Before installing the LED I first soldered a cable to one of its terminals. To the other terminal I soldered one end of my resistor. Then I soldered my second cable to the far end of the resistor. I used shrink wrap to insulate my work.

At this stage I installed the LED into its clip and passed the cables through where all other switch cables leave the switch block. There is plenty of room so my final wiring looks like it belongs. These two wires follow the others into the fairing where I married my negative cable to a negative ground and the positive cable to a switched positive. My LEDs are on whenever my lights are on. Note that the longest terminal on the LED is the positive one. The shorter one goes to ground. If you get these the wrong way around it wont work.

+1 I noticed that on night rides. I think this light mod looks promising. I've already opened up the left hand switch and installed a button earlier to access the instrument panel screens (08/09 farkle mod). Curious if you'll do this on the right side...

I wish some one would just invent a skinny piece of plastic with a few lights that would fit between the hand grip and controls. Then you could run a thin wire down the bars and connect power and ground.